


promises worth keeping

by breeisonfire



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012)
Genre: Brotherly Bonding, b team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 23:41:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6398995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breeisonfire/pseuds/breeisonfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's hard for little brothers when the older ones are arguing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	promises worth keeping

**Author's Note:**

> WOW bad summary. This is shorter than I meant it to be. Blah. This takes place when they're younger. I don't know, I'm not all that happy with this one.

Donnie’s reading a book in the living room when the yelling starts.

These days, it’s common for Leo and Raph to start arguing. Donnie can’t exactly figure out why, but they’ve been butting heads more and more often. They spend nearly as much time arguing as they do training. He assumes it’s because they’re getting older, almost thirteen, and they’re almost always around each other.

He’s read about puberty, though he doesn’t know how it would affect them, considering their turtle DNA. He’s inclined to think it’ll be similar to humans, given what he’s seen so far. Leo and Raph don’t seem to be proving his hypothesis wrong any time soon.

He sighs and closes his book, hopping up from the pit and heading to his room. Master Splinter’s already heading to split up the two before they come to blows and Donnie knows he’s more equipped to handle the fight than he is.

Besides, he’s got another thing to take care of.

He puts his book down on the desk Master Splinter managed to find for their last Mutation Day and drops to his hands and knees, lifting his blanket to look under his bed.

Wide blue eyes peek out at him, and Donnie gestures. His little brother crawls out slowly.

Of them all, Mikey takes the arguing the hardest. It’s not surprising, given how emotional Mikey usually is. He hates seeing people upset and angry. He gets distressed and he’s taken to hiding whenever it starts up. One sign of yelling and he’s gone. Mikey’s incredibly creative when it comes to hiding places, so after too many instances of trying to track down Mikey for sometimes hours at a time, Donnie told him to hide in his room, and they’ll wait out the fights together.

It’s worked so far. Mikey’s the only one of them who can still fit under their beds and now that’s where Donnie always finds him. He can’t help but feel relieved every time; he’s had too many nightmares where he never finds Mikey, or finds him hurt or worse.

Mikey’s the only little brother he has. He doesn’t know what he’d do if he lost him.

Mikey climbs up onto Donnie’s bed while Donnie reaches up on the shelf to grab the precious few pieces of paper they have and the special set of crayons they’d found. He gives them to Mikey, who immediately picks out the orange crayon. He puts it to the paper, but doesn’t move it. He looks too thoughtful, and Donnie prepares himself for the barrage of questions he assumes is coming.

“Why do they keep fighting?” he asks, looking up with round eyes, and Donnie feels his stomach drop. He should have known this was coming.

“I don’t know,” he admits. He’s worried about it, too. Their family, they’re all they have in the world. If Leo and Raph keep fighting, if the tension there doesn’t figure itself out, Donnie doesn’t know what will happen.

“Will we start fighting, too?” Mikey asks, and Donnie looks up sharply. Mikey looks upset, too upset for this to be the first time he’s thought of it, and Donnie shakes his head.

“No way,” he says firmly. “I promise.”

Then he nudges Mikey and grins. “We’re too smart for that.”

Mikey lets out a delighted laugh, and hearing it sends a wave of relief through Donnie. He watches as Mikey puts down the orange crayon and picks up the purple one, and hopes to God that his future self remembers this moment. He doesn’t think he’d ever forgive himself if he ever caused that upset look to appear on Mikey’s face again.

“Hey, D?” Mikey says, and Donnie looks up at him. Mikey grins. “Thanks.”

Donnie can’t help but smile back. “Anytime, Mikey.”

He won’t break his promise.


End file.
